St. Maurice

Born: unknown

Died: c.287

Canonized: pre-Congregation

Feast Day: September 22

Patron Saint of: gout, cramps, infantrymen, swordsmiths

Leader (primicerius) of the Theban Legion, massacred at Agaunum, about
287 A.D., by order of Maximian Herculius. The legend relates that the legion,
composed entirely of Christians, had been called from Africa to suppress a
revolt of the Bagandae in Gaul. The soldiers were ordered to sacrifice to the
gods in thanksgiving but refused. Every tenth was then killed. Another order to
sacrifice and another refusal caused a second decimation and then a general
massacre.

St. Maurice is represented as a knight in full armor (sometimes as a Moor),
bearing a standard and a palm; in Italian paintings with a red cross on his
breast, which is the badge of the Sardinian Order of St. Maurice. Many places in
Switzerland, Piedmont, France, and Germany have chosen him as celestial patron,
as have also the dyers, cloth makers, soldiers, sword smiths, and others. He is
invoked against gout, cramps, etc.